The Education Community of Practice focuses on the application of PCP to teaching and learning. We aim to engage interested educationalists and psychologists in a constructive dialogue on education and pedagogy. We have organised seminars and day workshops and aim to continue these at both a local and national level in response to demand.

The contact for the Education Community of Practice is Chris Walker
(chris.walker.cedar@gmail.com)
Chris has a background in educational psychology.

Liz Thomson
(lizthomson1@gmail.com)
supports Chris in the
development of this CoP, Liz has a background
in teaching and working as an educational advisor.

The main purpose of the seminar was to consider how PCP can support practitioners today. This was done by addressing 2 main areas:

I. Sharing practice
II. Developing a community of practice

I. Sharing practice using PCP

The discussion amongst the Educational Psychologists present raised issues concerning their practice. The discussion was prompted by the following questions related to the use of PCP frameworks or techniques:

Which do you tend to use?
How useful are they?
What are their limitations and possibilities?
How could your practice be developed?

Issues raised:

Sharing techniques
Teachers sharing together
Application of techniques from PCP such as Lego modelling (in Heather Moran’s book) laddering
Using PCP with teachers to counter a negative stance
Challenge of engaging the child/young person
Progressing work with individual children and teachers
Holistic view of the child via different constructs
Giving feedback in a way that is appropriate to the constructs
Adapting to different school contexts
Looking at the processes of referral between EP and teacher.
Working as a researcher, encouraging the child to be a researcher.
Creating opportunities for more systemic ways of working
Feeling comfortable with the theory
Intensity of the language
Familiarity with terms. Communication / problem solving / team roles
Framing questions….. asking the right question
Undergraduate introduction to PCP. The OU has a strong focus upon social context. There is a huge variation amongst universities.
Using PCP alongside other theoretical models
Shared concern about lack of commissioning and lack of time
Need to explore creative ways of working. Buying EPs time.
Combating tunnel vision – often linked to statutory duties

The final issue raised in this part of the seminar was the need for practitioners to manage their own changing constructs

II. Developing a Community of Practice

This discussion was prompted by the questions:

What form should a community of practice take?
How can practice be shared?
How to stay in touch?
How to reach out to include teachers?
What should be the content of future seminars?

Establishing a Community of Practice
There was a general wish to develop a community of practice linked to Education. This could take a number of forms :

Internet forums - e.g., Linked In and Facebook
Establishing interest groups/sharing case studies
Building strong cross district service connections (this related to those EPs who worked in adjacent boroughs(districts)
Identifying co-ordinators who could work from their strengths
Face to face seminars.

The need for opportunities to continue meeting together was recognised as important. Possible areas to focus on included:
Looking at the PCPA foundation course
Taking forward what is given on training courses / sharing materials.
Supervision of PCP practice

There seemed to be interest in having a six monthly seminar so that people could meet face to face. With this in mind we look forward to organising something for March 2016. The meeting could take a similar format with a focus upon say using PCP with young offenders or young people on the ASD spectrum.

Meeting in London is the most straight forward at the moment but consideration might be given to meeting in Birmingham which is geographically more central.

Liz and Chris organised this seminar together; however, other people might wish to take on the organisation of future seminars.

We also agreed to share emails to facilitate contact, with the usual proviso that people do not abuse this.